• IBM Really, Really Doesn’t Want Sun

  April 20, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  This is getting ridiculous. Well, maybe it was ridiculous from the beginning. Anyway, the latest reports are that server and operating system maker Sun Microsystems was, as of the end of last week, still interested in renewing acquisition talks with IBM. However, Big Blue has, according to sources, lost interest. Again. Bloomberg reported on late Wednesday (April 15) that people familiar with the situation said that Sun was still interested in selling itself to Big Blue, but it was sticking to its line that IBM had to assure Sun’s board of directors that it would commit to the deal

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• Lawson Sways BPCS Consultancy to M3’s Reseller Rolls

  April 20, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Lawson Software last week announced a reseller partnership with PHOENIX Business Consulting, a Greensburg, Pennsylvania, IT consultancy that focuses on ERP systems for manufacturers. As the latest addition to Lawson’s channel, PHOENIX–which previously specialized in Infor ERP LX/BPCS consulting–will sell and work with Lawson’s competing product, the M3 ERP suite. PHOENIX Business Consulting has more than 20 years of experience helping manufacturers across the U.S. to develop and maintain their ERP systems. The company, which has locations in western Pennsylvania and Virginia, today focuses on the IBM Power Systems platform, which has a loyal following among manufacturers. For many

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• IBM and Chip Partners Plot Course for 28 Nanometer Designs

  April 20, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM and the chip partners it has rounded up to share the burden of creating future chip manufacturing processes announced last week that they have nailed down the technologies that they will roll up to comprise their 28 nanometer chip making processes. In the current Power6 family of chips, IBM is using a relatively new 65 nanometer process, which will probably also be used with the Power6+ chips expected sometime this year (and hopefully sooner rather than later). IBM is fixing to shift to a 45 nanometer process with the Power7 generation of chips, due in 2010. So that probably

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• Economic Stimulus Programs Put IT Under the Microscope

  April 20, 2009 Dan Burger

  Information technology has been a clear advantage for the United States as the global economy–weak as it is–drives business decisions. But the unevenness of how IT is applied is retarding much of the progress in businesses. Americans debate whether the government’s economic stimulus programs are the wisest investments given that it’s piling up the national debt like never before, but few question that the IT industry will benefit and that companies fitting into certain niches stand to gain the most. Implications of the economic stimulus plan are being studied by analysts at IDC, and an early report titled Business

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• IBM Expands SOA Marketing With Partners in Mind

  April 20, 2009 Dan Burger

  Years ago, IBM chose service oriented architecture (SOA) as its preferred method for customers to reconfigure applications and improve flexibility based on platform and language interoperability. Last week, the IT goliath introduced a sales channel and partnership plan designed to open new markets and help partners compete more effectively. The plan consists of social media tools, education programs, and expanded technologies that are aimed at the SOA market. Highlighting the social media tools is a feature known as Virtual Forum, which was designed to help partners develop leads. Virtual Forum simulates a trade show, IBM says, by creating a virtual

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• Power vs. Nehalem: Time to Double Up and Double Down

  April 13, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The first TPC-C online transaction processing benchmark tests are in for the new two-socket “Nehalem EP” Xeon 5500 processors from Intel, and as I suggested would be the case in last week’s coverage of that chip announcement, IBM had better get its fingers out of its ears and get to work goosing the two-socket and four-socket servers with some Power6+ chips, or be prepared to cut prices on the i 6.1 software stack to compete against Windows on these Nehalem machines. The news is not, perhaps, as bad as it could be. First, let’s take a deep breath and

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• The IBM-Sun Saga Continues–Or Rather, Doesn’t

  April 13, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Well, so much for that idea. About a day after I wrote about the impending acquisition of Unix server maker Sun Microsystems by IBM for last week’s issue, the deal came apart. And why? Apparently–and we all have to say apparently out here because no one has said anything officially–because the two parties could not agree on money or the firmness of their commitments. This seems to be a typical bad engagement gone worse before the nuptials are even exchanged. Which is when you want things to go bad, particularly if you are most Sun employees, people who want

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• Clone Memory Maker Dataram Buys Rival MMB

  April 13, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  While the IT press focuses on all the big merger and acquisition deals that are going on as the economy moves along at its sluggish pace, there are plenty of smaller deals going on as companies realize they are too small to go it alone and they meet up with other companies that want to acquire them for one reason or another. So it is with clone memory maker Dataram‘s acquisition last week of rival Micro Memory Bank, both of which are located in my neck of the woods. Dataram is based in the suburbs outside of Princeton,

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• Lawson Ekes Out Profit in Q3, Partners to Peddle in Quebec

  April 13, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Currency fluctuations and a downturn in IT spending, particularly among manufacturing customers, combined to drive third quarter revenues down 18 percent to $174 million for Lawson Software, but cost cutting enabled the company to post a profit anyway. The St. Paul, Minnesota, ERP software vendor also announced a deal with a French Canadian reseller, Commsoft Technologies, to sell Lawson’s M3 suite, which is primarily implemented on i-based Power Systems machines. Conventional wisdom says that during periods of macro economic uncertainty, such as we find ourselves in now, companies will put the brakes on big new ERP purchases and

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• Automation: Monitoring the Monitors Isn’t It

  April 13, 2009 Dan Burger

  A few weeks ago, I noticed that Tom Duncan was making a presentation about Management Central, a component of System i Navigator, at the The OMNI User meeting in Chicago. I was curious how the group responded to his topic because Management Central can be a little quirky. As it turned out, Duncan says, the topic was quite well received based on the amount of questions the audience had about Management Central. Most people know about Management Central, but like a lot of things on the AS/400 and its successors, the familiarity varies from having simply heard about it to

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